The representatives then proceeded to present their certificates of attendance to the participants. Finally, Dr Blanc declared the course officially closed.
2.8 Evaluation of the course by the participants
The course was useful for all participants. At district level, all modules were found very useful or useful, especially Administering treatment. At national level, the module Establish Revised national Tuberculosis Programme Strategy was judged very useful by 66.6% of the participants and useful by the rest. The other modules were found very useful by 58% of the participants, useful by 33.3% and somewhat useful by 8%.
The time spent on work, modules and site visits was found adequate by the majority of participants, too short by about a third and too long by some individuals.
The participants generally found that the pace of work during the course had been rapid, with long lecture hours and little time for relaxation.
A recurrent wish from the participants was to see more interactive discussions included in future courses, held as an open forum.
Detailed evaluation from the participants is attached as Annex 3.
3. CONCLUSIONS
The format of the new WHO training course on management of tuberculosis is likely to be successful: the 3-week duration of the course is adequate, and the content of the training is sufficient and well balanced.
The participants were provided with a mixture of lectures at a high level, self study on the modules with immediate feedback from the facilitators and some practical activities in the laboratory as well as during a field visit.
The immediate benefit to the participants was to provide or confirm a more
comprehensive understanding of the responsibilities of national or district managers, and the importance of proper national tuberculosis control policies with focus on the implementation of DOTS regionwide.
